


A Week and Twenty Dollars

by nickel710



Series: streamlined [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Cap Steve, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Presents, First Christmas, Fluff, M/M, Santa hats, a few feels but all resolved and happy, good family good friends, modern!Bucky, sappy boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-28
Updated: 2018-09-28
Packaged: 2019-07-18 13:36:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16119548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nickel710/pseuds/nickel710
Summary: A Christmas fic in September? It's more likely than you think! Concurrent companion piece to How Buzzfeed Helped. Occurs during chapter 13 time span of HBH, after Invested. This can definitely be read without reading HBH and you'll still enjoy the fluffy Christmas feels, but parts won't make sense.Steve was pretty comfortable with giving gifts to his friends for Christmas the last few years after he defrosted, but what the hell do you do you for your boyfriend-of-a-few-months in the 21st century when Christmas rolls around?





	A Week and Twenty Dollars

**Author's Note:**

> ((Edit: loool so sorry about the mistaken major character death tag? I meant to use the no archive warnings apply and somehow? Oops. Anyway almost no one saw that but seriously. Sorry. Lol.))
> 
> Yoooo I write fast, it's just a thing. Someone asked for first Christmas and my usual process of mulling over an idea for a while and jotting down some scraps until I get a clear sense of the scene etc., just, out the window and I wrote all this pretty quick. Today was a shit day so I'm posting this because sharing fluffy boys with you all makes me happy.

Since Steve and Bucky had first started dating in autumn, their first Christmas came only a few months into their relationship. 

Sure, it had been a few years since Steve had come out of the ice, but in that time the only people he had been close enough with to exchange presents with were the Avengers and other work-related folks. They were his friends, too, of course, and he liked the silly prank-type gifts he and Clint got for each other, the surprisingly sentimental ones from Natasha and Sam, and the Weird Shit that came from Tony and Thor. Tony was spectacularly bad at gifts but good at gestures, and Thor just didn’t really understand the customs around midgardian gift-giving but tried his hardest.

It hadn’t been hard over the last few years to find trinkets and things that reminded him of his friends. Over the years, his favorites had been: Washington Capitals tickets for Sam; they’d gone together and banged on the glass and booed the rival team’s goalie loudly. A “mixtape” CD for Tony of songs Steve had found from surreptitiously jotting down the names of all the bands on his t-shirts, which he had titled “Steve’s First Try at Modern Music.” A book of dirty sex jokes that he had personally annotated for Clint, where his annotations were exaggerated statements of confusion and misunderstanding (some were sincere but he’d never tell which). A handwritten booklet for Natasha that said in crayon on every page “Are we friends? [ ] Yes [ ] No” until the last ten pages which had sketches of how, in Steve’s memory, she looked while fighting.

She still sometimes tore pages out of the book with either the yes or no marked and left them around for him to find when she was either mad at him or had forgiven him for something.

But now he had a boyfriend. A _secret_ boyfriend. What did people buy their boyfriend of almost four months for Christmas in the 21st century? 

Because Sam had indirectly introduced them and knew both of their identities, he was the only person Steve could ask for help. After too many panicked “but what if” text messages, Sam sent back “if you’re this worried about it just fucking ask him i swear to god rogers, i will not answer one more text on this topic until you talk to prez about it.”

So on the 16th of December, Steve was lying on Bucky’s couch and waiting for his stream to end. They had rearranged Bucky’s streaming setup and furniture so that Steve could sit behind him on the couch (which was a new addition) and watch without being seen when he was at Bucky’s apartment. He usually did something else, too, like read a book or watch something on his list of “must-see film and tv” on his laptop, headphones in.

Today, though, he attempted to read but was too distracted by his nerves as he tried to settle on the way he would ask Bucky about Christmas. Would Bucky take it wrong that he didn’t have the perfect gift idea already? Would he be disappointed that Steve didn’t intuitively know what he wanted? Steve should probably just know what he wanted, right? What if Bucky had been dropping hints for a month and Steve just hadn’t picked up on them?

Steve startled out of his spiralling despair when he heard Bucky saying, “—your president, signing off.” He looked up almost guiltily as Bucky finished closing down the stream and unplugging his camera and mic (an extra precaution that Steve fully approved of, having seen both Nat and Tony easily find their way into civilian camera feeds).

Bucky swiveled around in his chair, turning appraising eyes to Steve, arms crossed and a worried frown on his mouth. Oh shit. This was it. Steve had fucked up.

“Wanna tell me what’s got you all keyed up?” Bucky asked, voice tight.

Steve thought of his shield’s first bullet test and Peggy’s face over the barrel of a smoking gun (literally) and shrank back a little, dropping his eyes to his hands in his lap.

Bucky uncrossed his arms, looking alarmed as he stood up and walked over to the couch. “Hey,” he said gently, kneeling in front of Steve and putting his hands on either side of his face. “Stevie, love. What’s wrong? You’re scaring me.”

Steve let out a shaky little laugh. “Sorry,” he muttered, trying to give a reassuring smile. “I just… I don’t want you to be mad at me,” he admitted.

“Have you done something to make me angry?” Bucky asked, voice still so soft.

Steve relaxed a bit, tilting his head into Bucky’s touch and smiling more sincerely now. “No. At least I… I don’t think so. I’m more worried that I might _not_ do something and that will make you mad.”

With the hand not currently cradling his boyfriend’s face, Bucky trailed his fingers down Steve’s arm and caught his hand, pulling it to his mouth and pressing a kiss into his knuckles. “What’s all this about, Steve? Tell me.”

Steve shuddered a little, closing his eyes and relishing in the feeling of certainty that Bucky’s gentle command gave. It was nice to know that even if what he said might upset Bucky, saying it at all was now explicitly expected. Bucky wanted him to say it, and Steve was pretty sure he would do anything Bucky wanted him to.

“It’s—I’m not sure what… we’re doing about Christmas?” he forced himself to say. He opened his eyes and met Bucky’s, which were narrowed with a somewhat confused expression. “I’ve never had a Christmas, you know, _with_ somebody.”

In an instant, Bucky’s face went from confused to understanding, and he smiled kindly as he adjusted himself so that he was sitting on the couch next to Steve instead of kneeling in front of him.

“That’s okay,” Bucky said, and Steve let out a deep breath he had been holding, just as relieved that Bucky wasn’t laughing at him as he was that he didn’t seem angry. Wasn’t. Wasn’t angry. “Let’s talk about it. What do you want to do for Christmas?”

“Honestly? I have no idea,” Steve confessed. “Normally I just hang around with whoever feels like coming by the Tower. Natasha doesn’t have much family so she comes by a lot. Sam has invited me to spend it with his family every year since he knows I don’t have any of my own, but it always felt… wrong, I guess, to intrude. No matter what he says, I think I’d make everyone a little uncomfortable just showing up to their family holiday.”

Bucky cocked his head. “Do you feel like you do that at family dinner with Jillian and the girls?” he inquired.

“Well—no, not anymore. Maybe at the beginning.”

Bucky nodded, thoughtful. “I think you sell yourself short on the strength of the appeal of Steve Rogers. I think Sam’s family would be quick to let go of the Captain America awe in favor of the Steve Rogers charm, to be honest. My family certainly did.”

Steve frowned. “You think I should spend Christmas with Sam?”

“What? No! I mean, unless… you want to?”

“I _want_ to spend it with you,” Steve answered quickly. 

Bucky looked relieved. “Good, because I completely forgot to ask you and just told Jillian we’d both be at the house from the 24th to the 26th.” He grinned guiltily. “I shouldn’t have assumed you would be okay with that, I’m really sorry.”

“No, that sounds great, honestly,” Steve reassured him quickly, pulling him close and sighing contentedly in the resulting hug. “Thanks.”

“Love you,” Bucky murmured into his shoulder.

“Yeah, yeah. You’re alright, I guess,” Steve answered, grinning at Bucky’s amused huff.

“Was that all that was bothering you?” Bucky asked after a minute, sitting back up and studying Steve’s face.

Feeling a little silly for having been panicking about this before, Steve smiled sheepishly. “I also have no idea what to get you.”

Bucky smirked, dragging his eyes slowly down Steve’s body. “Baby, you’re already the best present I’ve ever gotten.”

Steve rolled his eyes, shoving at Bucky’s shoulder playfully.

“Wait, I have an idea, actually,” Bucky said, but his tone of voice hadn’t changed from the seductive drawl. “We’ll get a Santa hat and you can wear that all day. And nothing else.”

Laughing, Steve pushed Bucky back onto the couch and pinned him there, knees on either side of him, butt resting on his thighs. “Jillian would probably like that present, too,” he pointed out slyly. 

Bucky groaned, throwing a hand over his face. “Gross, Steve, she’s my _aunt_.”

“You’re the one who wanted me to wear only a Santa hat on Christmas day, which we are spending at her house,” Steve pointed out, leaning over Bucky to trail little kisses across his neck.

“Okay, that will be the plan for the 27th, when we’re back here,” Bucky amended, bringing his hands to rest on Steve’s hips. “Let’s get presents together for Jill and the girls, and we’ll get each other something small to open with the family. Like, max $50, something materialistic and stupid. No big sentimental gestures needed, just, fuck, never stop doing that,” he ended, voice going breathless as Steve nipped at his ear.

Steve did stop, though, and brushed a hand through Bucky’s hair with a lopsided smile. “I don't know if I can follow a no sentimentality rule.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “You’re a big sap,” he accused. 

“But I'm your big sap,” Steve said, laying down on top of Bucky and melding to him.

“Operative word being ‘big,’” Bucky grunted, smacking lightly at Steve's hip to get him to move. “Too heavy to just lay on me like that.” 

Steve chuckled and rolled to the side so that he was sandwiched between Bucky and the back of the couch. When they had redone the streaming setup at the apartment, they had decided to buy a new couch that was extra wide so they could both fit on it like this, and had never had a second of buyer's remorse. Every time they cuddled up on the couch and didn't also have to practice contortionist methods to fit, Steve mentally high-fived his past self for the foresight. 

Bucky lay on his back, Steve on his side next to him propped up on one elbow. With his other hand he traced the lines of Bucky’s face and throat with gentle fingertips.

“Okay, new rules,” Bucky said, and Steve paused, pulling his hand back for a second until he remembered that he had said he couldn’t follow a no-sentimentality rule. His hand picked up its study of Bucky’s face as he said, “Let’s make it a sappy gift competition. No more than $20 spent but whoever manages to pull off the most cloyingly sentimental gift wins.”

Steve grinned, slow and predatory. “You’re on, Sarge,” he said, dropping his face to claim a kiss as his mind already began churning up ideas for a winning present.

What Bucky always forgot was that Steve Rogers was not just competitive, he was _so fucking competitive_ that sometimes it was legitimately a problem.

He had seven days and twenty dollars and by God, he was _going to win._

* * *

On Christmas morning, Bucky and Becca made enough french toast stuffed with bananas and cream cheese to feed a small army, which meant everyone had their fill and there was only one piece leftover. Hannah and Steve cleaned up the dishes as Ellie and Jillian entertained Elena by showing her all of the presents and stockings, put out overnight. 

When everything was in order in the kitchen, the family assembled for exchanging gifts.

“Elena’s gift from me first!” Becca declared, pulling a brightly wrapped box from under the tree and handing it to Ellie. Soon enough, presents were handed out to everyone and Jillian was snapping pictures of delighted faces as each of the Barnes children and Steve unwrapped packages, until at last she distributed her own presents to her nieces and nephew. These ranged from socks for everyone to a new iPhone for Hannah, a second high-quality microphone and webcam for Bucky’s streaming rig for guests, a high-end tailored suit for Becca, and a full-day spa package for two for Ellie.

“Now, Steve,” Jillian said, pulling a little box out from under the tree, perhaps four inches square and three deep. “I know you’ve only been part of our family for a few months, but I want you to know that you already fit in like a missing puzzle piece to us, and we’re all just so happy with how happy Bucky is with you. So I got you something, too.”

“Jill,” he started, but she shook her head and pushed the present into his hands. He let the protest die on his lips, and instead said in a voice thick with emotion, “Thank you.”

“You haven’t even opened it, don’t thank her yet,” Becca teased.

Steve undid the silver ribbon carefully, then slid his fingers under the clear tape holding the shiny blue paper in place, gently popping each piece up so as not to tear the wrapping.

“Oh my god, he’s one of those,” Hannah stage-whispered to Ellie. Bucky smacked her shoulder good-naturedly as the girls giggled.

Inside the paper was a metal box. Steve popped it open and found a fancy watch that reminded him of the ones Tony sometimes wore. He looked up at Jillian with wide eyes but she just nodded encouragingly. He pulled the watch out of the box and turned it this way and that, examining the dark face and bold silver details, the various dials and gauges and heavy metal band. As he fiddled with it so all the different elements would catch the light, he noticed an odd glint off the backside and flipped it over. 

It was engraved. He held it up to see the engraving better and saw that the etching was of a tandem bicycle.

He gave a watery smile to Jillian, then held it out so Bucky could see the engraving.

“Aw, Jill,” Bucky said, grinning.

“It’s perfect,” Steve said, wiping at his eyes hastily. “Thank you.”

Jillian couldn’t contain herself anymore and got up from where she had been sitting on the fireplace hearth, and hugged both Bucky and Steve to her. “I just love you boys so much,” she said.

Then Ellie said, “Wait, what about Steve and Bucky’s presents to each other?”

“Yeah,” Hannah agreed, looking around for missing presents. “We all got one from you two, where are your presents?”

Bucky grinned. “Well, I’m glad you asked, sisters,” he said dramatically. “You see, Steve and I have a little competition going and we’re going to need your help as judges.”

“Oh, boy,” Becca muttered, but she was watching them with an amused smile. Steve caught her eye and she winked.

“The competition is for the sappiest present on a budget of $20,” Bucky explained, then glanced at Steve and tapped a finger on his lower lip, contemplating. “Who should go first?”

“We’ll flip for it?” Steve suggested, patting at his pockets for a coin but not finding one.

“I’m thinking of a number between one and ten,” Hannah said, whispering something to Ellie (to prevent cheating by changing the number or lying about who won, Steve would later learn, the Barnes children had a time-honored tradition of always verifying the number across at least two siblings) then pointed at Bucky.

“Uh… four?” Bucky guessed.

Hannah pointed at Steve. 

“Nine?”

“The number was three, Bucky goes first,” Hannah declared, as Ellie held up three fingers to confirm.

Bucky looked at Steve, who shrugged, so he cleared his throat and said, “I’ll be right back,” before running upstairs. A minute later he came back into the living room with a nicely wrapped package, about one foot square and a few inches deep. He handed it to Steve.

Steve looked straight at Bucky, held eye contact, and deliberately ripped the paper. Hannah and Ellie howled with laughter as Bucky rolled his eyes with a smirk.

Wrapping out of the way, Steve held what amounted to a fancy, softly-padded binder. It was a little worn and tattered on the edges, but was otherwise handsomely decorated with green and white chevrons. In the center of the front cover was a clear spot where a photo of Steve and Bucky together had been slotted.

“I had to buy the book part secondhand to stay under $20,” Bucky explained with a laugh. “I think it used to be baby scrapbook.”

Steve opened the book and the first page said, “When Prez Met Cap: An Internet Love Story.”

The rest of the book was a collection of articles, tweets, screenshots, blog posts, and gifs (separated out into a series of still images with captions) that Bucky had collected from around the internet. Added to these were photos that he had taken of them and handwritten notes, and altogether it told the story of _their_ story from almost the first day they had met. Bucky had gone above and beyond with stickers that imitated the reaction emojis on Buzzfeed, hearts and laughing faces and such, as added flavor.

On the final spread of the scrapbook, he had written out “I love you” in grape stickers against a red-and-white checkered background.

Everyone oohed and aahed and applauded Bucky’s gift, Steve most of all. He was legitimately touched by the gesture, even though he knew it came in part from their competition. But what Steve really loved about it was that it was their love story from everyone’s eyes but his. The internet, the press, Bucky, all of the eyes that had been on Cap and Prez as a unit; it was their images and their reactions and their takes on the sort-of-public, sort-of-anonymous relationship that had been unfolding between Bucky and Steve. And while it was a little biased toward a Steve-focus, having been made by Bucky, it nevertheless captured the both of them in an at-once familiar yet strange light.

Steve thanked Bucky with a brief but heartful kiss before saying, “My turn?”

Bucky nodded and took Steve’s spot on the couch. Steve turned to Becca. “Ready?” She grinned and nodded, then ran to the stairs to get something from her room.

“Hey!” Bucky exclaimed. “You recruited Becca?”

“Of course I did,” Steve said, rolling his eyes. “There were no rules against having helpers and I play to win, baby.”

Becca returned with two items. The first was a Santa hat, which she handed to Steve. Steve removed a little stack of folded papers from it before giving Bucky a lascivious wink and donning the hat, earning himself a laugh and wolf-whistle.

Steve unfolded the hat papers and nodded to Becca. She revealed the second item: a stack of thick illustration pages, all from the same sketch book but loose-leaf now. She held them up, the top page blank.

“Once upon a time, there was a big, handsome hero named Roger Stevens,” Steve read, and with just the first line the whole room was cracking up as Becca revealed the first illustration, drawn by Steve. He had modeled the character Roger Stevens closely on himself, obviously, but he had exaggerated his features to make him more muscular, jaw stronger, shoulders broader. Roger was standing in a classic heroic pose, chin tilted up and to the corner. He was figured in a bright spotlight, and around him was a dark pool of inky emptiness.

“Roger was the bravest, handsomest, smartest, kindest, most daring—”

“Seriously?” Bucky interrupted through his laughter.

Steve lowered the page and gave him an affronted look. “If you can’t keep quiet during the reading, sir, I’m afraid we’ll have to start over.”

Wiping tears from his eyes, Bucky held up his hands in surrender and then gestured for Steve to continue, lips pressed tightly shut.

Steve let his indignant glare linger for another second before lifting the story pages up to eye level again and continuing, “—funniest, strongest, and fastest soldier of them all, and also very handsome.”

“Do you think he’s handsome?” Ellie asked Hannah in another stage-whisper.

“Clearly he's very modest, at least,” Hannah answered.

Bucky shushed his sisters with a serious look. “If you can’t stay quiet during the reading, madams,” he started, using a snooty accent, but Ellie chucked a pillow at him to cut him off.

Steve cleared his throat obnoxiously, arching an eyebrow until they had all settled again, their attention back on him.

“Roger had it all: dashing good looks—” 

Groans from the audience— 

“—more money than he needed, a nice house and a job that gave him purpose. Roger had it all, that is, except for one thing.”

Becca flipped to the next page, revealing a new illustration. The mood in the room sobered as they took in the new image. Roger knelt facing away from the viewer, head bowed and one hand covering his face. Before him was a series of five graves, and when Bucky later studied them more closely, he saw familiar names: Sarah Rogers, Margaret “Peggy” Carter, Howard Stark, Gabe Jones, Jim Morita. Behind that row, the graveyard stretched back across acres of land.

“Roger didn’t have a family.” Steve cleared his throat, eyes flicking up to Bucky’s for a second before dropping back to his script. This was the part he was most nervous to read, and the picture he was most self-conscious about sharing. But this was a competition, and he was here to win, so he pressed on. “At first, he filled the void with the people he worked with, and that was good. His friends were heroes, too, and filled his days with wondrous adventures and world-changing thrills.”

Becca flipped to the next illustration, which featured Roger smiling at a black man who had his arm slung across his shoulders and a grin on his face. On his other side, a petite and beautiful woman was rolling her eyes at their antics, a smirk on her face. Behind them, a figure clearly inspired by Iron Man was struggling to pick up a hammer as another inspired by Thor watched with a smile, while a big green monster slept under a tree nearby in which a little Hawkeye-like figure was hiding.

“Roger told himself he was happy. He told himself it was fine, that this was as good as he would get out of life. And it _was_ good. He told himself it was enough, and being a very charming and convincing fellow, he even believed himself for a while. But sometimes, every once in a great while, he would stand overlooking the city that was both his home and not, and he would admit to himself that he wanted more. Maybe that’s why he finally agreed to try new hobbies when his friends encouraged him to. A hobby would surely fill the void.”

He nodded to Becca, and she flipped to the next illustration, which had a series of images of Roger trying new things and looking scared, frustrated, disgusted, or sad. 

“One friend suggested knitting, so he tried knitting. But his big hands—so useful for wielding weapons and cracking skulls—just got in his way. Another friend suggested racquetball, so he tried racquetball. But his super speed and strength—so useful for shielding civilians caught in warzones—made the game dangerous and unfair. Someone else suggested returning to art, so he tried returning to art. But his battle experience—so useful for commanding his team on the field—made his pictures too depressing to share. Then someone suggested video games.” He nodded to Becca. 

She revealed the next illustration, which showed a dumbfounded and overwhelmed-looking Roger sitting at a computer monitor, a headset over his ears and with a microphone extended. The computer screen in front of him showed an Overwatch background sketched with the red fringe around the edges that showed up when a player’s character was killed in a match, and in the middle of the screen were the words “ELIMINATED BY BUCKYBEAR.”

“So he tried video games. His big hands fit the keyboard just fine. His super speed helped him react to the game’s cues. His battle experience made him a valuable teammate. But these weren’t the reasons he stuck with video games as a new hobby, oh no.”

Becca flipped the page and the illustration now showed the same scene of Roger in front of his computer screen, but turned so he was in profile. On the other side of the page, facing him, was a new character, also in profile and sitting behind a computer screen, also wearing a headset. They were separated by a narrow strip of cityscape. The Buckybear character was smirking at his screen, looking confident and relaxed, while Roger looked wide-eyed and stunned.

“He stuck with video games because he met someone who also played, a man called Buckybear. And for the first time, Roger thought maybe he had found someone kinder, smarter, quicker, and funnier than him. There was something about Buckybear that stuck in Roger’s chest from the first time they played together, and from that day on he was addicted.”

A new illustration. Buckybear sitting on the floor, a coffee by his side, working intently on fixing a bike. Roger sat in a chair nearby, watching Buckybear work, a lovesick smile on his face. “And when Roger met Buckybear in real life for the first time, he discovered something shocking: Roger was _not_ the handsomest hero on the block, anymore, either.”

A new illustration. Buckybear making pizza while Roger played with a little girl on the kitchen floor and four women, one older and three younger, sat at the kitchen table laughing over glasses of wine, a plate of cheese between them. 

“But that wasn’t all Roger discovered,” Steve continued. “Little by little, drop by drop, the time he spent with Buckybear poured into that void he had talked himself out of acknowledging, until one day it was full again, and he looked around him and realized that he had finally found the thing he had been looking for all along.”

At Steve’s nod, Becca revealed the final illustration. Roger and Buckybear were sitting in the park, their bikes laying on the side and a red-and-white checkered blanket under them. Buckybear had a bowl of grapes in his lap and Roger was leaning forward, mouth open to be fed one of the berries.

“Roger was no longer the handsomest, smartest, funniest, bravest, kindest hero of them all.” Here Steve paused thoughtfully, then added quickly, “Though still the fastest and strongest.” This got the desired chuckle. “But he didn’t care, because he had a family again. Life had become so much better than he had ever hoped it could be. The end.”

His audience broke into cheers and applause as Bucky got up from the couch and wrapped a weepy hug around his boyfriend.

“You fucking sap,” Bucky whispered through his sobs. Steve laughed, hugging him back and accepting a long, sweet kiss.

“So, I won, right?” Steve said.

Bucky shoved him away as he snickered, then said, “I fucking concede, let’s not even vote. I can’t believe you wrote and illustrated a fucking book.” He wiped his eyes, then turned a scowl on Becca. “And you! Betrayed by my own sister.” He shook his head.

“Merry Christmas, Buck!” Becca said with a grin.

Bucky looked back at Steve and smiled. “Yeah. Merry Christmas.”

* * *

On the 27th, Steve got up early and sneaked out of bed, shedding his pajamas and donning his Santa hat, then settled onto the couch under a blanket to await Bucky’s awakening.

**Author's Note:**

> :) hope you enjoyed! As you can probably tell I love writing this stuff and your ideas/prompts for scenes are genuinely appreciated, so if you have something that you'd like to read from this AU feel free to leave it in the comments. No promises, as always, but I legit enjoy getting them and having them as fodder no matter what!


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